Voting to begin in pivotal Michigan primary election

Lansing — Michigan residents will be able to begin voting this week in the state’s Aug. 4 primary election with nominations for governor, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House and the Legislature hanging in the balance.

Under the Michigan Constitution, by Thursday — 40 days before Election Day — clerks have to ensure that absentee ballots are available for voters and that ballot dropboxes, through which the ballots can be returned, are accessible.

Michael Siegrist, the clerk in Canton Township, said this week marks the start of the election.

“Most of the voters in Michigan are going to have a ballot in their hand within the next week or two,” Siegrist said.

Siegrist, a Democrat and the president of the Michigan Association of Municipal Clerks, was referring to the fact that most of the vote in the primary election is expected to come through absentee ballots.

In the August 2024 primary election, as an example, about 65% of the vote in Michigan’s largest county, Wayne County, came via absentee ballots.

Adrian Hemond, a Michigan political consultant and CEO of the firm Grassroots Midwest, said it will be difficult this year for candidates who go into Election Day behind their opponents on absentee ballots to catch up.

“It’s basically the election,” Hemond said of the absentee ballot window.

A larger portion of the vote in primaries comes through absentee ballots than in general elections because there’s usually a smaller pool of voters in primaries and primary participants tend to be more educated about their ballot options.

Before 2018, Michigan voters generally had to have an explanation to cast an absentee ballot, like they planned to be out of state on the date of the election. But in 2018, they approved a ballot proposal that allowed for no-reason absentee voting, broadly providing the option to submit an absentee ballot through the mail, a dropbox or by turning it in at the clerk’s office.

Local clerks can’t begin processing and tabulating the absentee ballots until July 27, at the earliest.

Also, in July, Michiganians can begin voting early in person into a tabulator. The exact date of the early voting window opening depends on decisions made by local clerks, but it has to start statewide by July 25.

In Michigan’s last primary election in a year when the governor’s office was on the ballot, about 2.17 million voters participated, according to the Secretary of State’s tracking.

Both Republican and Democratic primary ballots have contested races for their gubernatorial nominations this year.

On the Democratic side, voters will pick between Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson of Detroit and Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson. On the GOP side, there are four candidates on the ballot: former Attorney General Mike Cox of Livonia, U.S. Rep. John James of Shelby Township, businessman Perry Johnson of Bloomfield Hills and state Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt of Porter Township.

Early polling has indicated that Republican gubernatorial race and the Democratic campaign for U.S. Senate might be close. The Democratic U.S. Senate contest has three contenders: former public health official Abdul El-Sayed of Ann Arbor, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow of Royal Oak and U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens of Birmingham.

Former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers is the lone Republican candidate for U.S. Senate.

Tony Forlini, the clerk in Macomb County, said he expects voters who are on the permanent absentee ballot list to begin getting the ballots in the coming days. Some of them will turn their filled-out ballots in as soon as they have the chance, Forlini said.

“We’re ready for it,” said Forlini, a Republican who’s running for secretary of state this fall

In Michigan’s largest city, Detroit, election officials are sending out 99,000 absentee ballots for the primary, said Matt Friedman, spokesman for Detroit Votes, the nonpartisan voter information campaign that partners with Detroit’s elections department.

“Voters are starting to receive absentee ballots this week for the primary election, as they have for the third consecutive year in Detroit, under Michigan’s absentee and early voting laws that took effect in 2024 as part of Michigan’s Constitution,” Friedman said.

In the August 2024 primary, about 63% of Detroit’s 84,994 ballots cast were absentee, about 3% were early votes and about 34% were in-person Election Day votes.

cmauger@detroitnews.com,